


Questions and Explanations

by esperink



Series: Taking Care [3]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Explanations, Exposition, Familial Relationships, Gen, How Do I Tag, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Logan's appearance is very brief, Memes, he just like provides exposition, i say age regression but virgil doesn't actually regress in this one, i'm so terrible at tagging, interpret this as prinxiety and i will steal your toes, me? projecting? it's more likely than you think, sorry lo, well there are two
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-05
Updated: 2019-08-05
Packaged: 2020-07-31 13:33:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20115913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/esperink/pseuds/esperink
Summary: Virgil can't get out of explaining this now.





	Questions and Explanations

**Author's Note:**

> I really fricking hate this but here 
> 
> Also I dunno how quickly I will be able to update the series writing because polyshipweek is like. Tomorrow.   
But I have at least three more fics ideas for this series

When Virgil woke up, it took him a minute or two to remember where he was and what had happened.

Right.

His face burned at the thought of being so vulnerable in front of somebody else.

Speaking of, where was Roman? Virgil got up, after making sure he’d gone back to normal, and started to leave, but when he stepped outside the door he nearly ran into the creative Side. He must have been returning from somewhere else.

“Oh, you’re awake,” Roman said in slight surprise. “I have questions.”

Virgil shifted, hunching his shoulders and avoiding eye contact. “Can’t it wait until after breakfast?”

Roman gave a dramatic sigh, which Virgil couldn’t help but roll his eyes at. “Very well,” he agreed.

So Roman wanted answers. And there was probably no way to get out of it, this time. Virgil was probably going to regret going to Roman last night.

He was probably going to judge him, Virgil figured.

But Roman _had_ let him in, had he not? He’d let him in and he’d told him a story. So maybe—

“Virge? Kiddo?”

Patton’s voice broke him out of his thoughts. He looked up and realized he’d been glaring at his breakfast plate.

“You’ve hardly touched your food. Are you okay?”

Virgil was about to ask what he meant, about barely touching his food, if breakfast had barely started, but then he noticed that everyone else’s plates were nearly almost empty. Virgil sighed and closed his eyes for a moment. “I’m fine,” he said, though it was likely that nobody believed him.

Breakfast finished soon enough. Patton picked up the plates, rinsed them off, put them in the dishwasher. He said while exiting the kitchen that he was going to spend some time in his own room, and Logan had also left the kitchen in an albeit quieter fashion.

Roman sat himself in the chair across from Virgil, who was suddenly very interested in his own hands.

“Virgil.”

“What?” Virgil rubbed his temples. “What do you want now?”

“I just want to know what’s going on,” Roman said.

“Why don’t you want to mind your own business?”

“You’re the one who came to my room last night!”

“And I’m starting to regret it,” Virgil snapped.

Something flickered across Roman’s face, and Virgil decided he regretted snapping at him, instead.

“No, I—” Virgil started to say, having trouble with his words. He pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. “I appreciated it. It’s just.” He shook his head for a moment, putting his hands on the table. “It’s kind of weird and not something I usually talk about.” He paused to chew on his thumbnail for a moment.

“Is there a reason it happens?” Roman asked as a suggestion of where to start, moving to sit next to him.

“It’s a stress thing, I think,” Virgil sighed. “Sometimes I just get into this mindset of a little kid and it helps me calm down. Sometimes on purpose and sometimes not on purpose.”

“Why would you do it on purpose?”

Virgil shrugged. “Like I said, it helps sometimes. Things are easier when you’re a kid and the only thing you have to worry about is… well, goldfish crackers.”

Roman nodded slowly, and Virgil wasn’t sure if he was understanding or not.

Roman put his hands together and had a look of contemplation on his face. “So basically… you’re baby.”

Virgil covered his smile with one hand and shoved Roman with the other. The princely Side was grinning, clearly satisfied with his response and Virgil’s reaction.

“Really? A meme? Right in front of my salad?” Virgil gestured to his nonexistent salad on the empty table. He shook his head, still smiling a little. He wasn’t sure what Roman had used the meme for. To break the tension? To show that it was okay? He hesitated, his smile fading. “It’s probably a weird thing,” Virgil said. “Abnormal even. I don’t even know if I _should_ be doing it.”

“On the contrary,” Logan’s voice piped up from the doorway, and Virgil flinched, realizing that he and Roman were still in the kitchen dining room area, and that Logan had never specified that he was going to his room. He could have been in the living room, the next room over, and heard every word.

Logan continued to speak as he grabbed the kettle, filling it with water and putting it on the stove, and turning on said stove. “While it’s not spoken of in public all that often, there _are_ other people who use age regression to relax and destress, though they do not take it to the point you are able to, seeing as most humans cannot shapeshift.”

Virgil glanced at Roman and mouthed, ‘Most?’

“It is much less harmful than, say, isolating yourself or using self-inflicted punishments.” Logan grabbed a tea bag from one of the cabinets and placed the tea and mug next to the stove as he waited for the kettle to finish. Then he turned back to face the others. “There are communities online. Some regressors even have caregivers.”

“Caregivers?” Virgil repeated, hoping for clarification.

“Those who provide care and support during the regression. They are typically a significant other but not always.”

Virgil hummed, chewing on his thumbnail in thought again. “Can you guys like… not tell Patton? about this? I just… I don’t know, I don’t want him to know.”

“Of course, I’ll take this secret to my grave!” Roman promised.

“That’s a little dramatic but okay,” Virgil murmured, before glancing at Logan, who merely nodded as an answer. He sighed in relief.

Now that Roman seemed to know and understand, Virgil found himself wanting to be in his company a little more often during his coping time, but he refrained from saying anything for a bit. There was something comforting about Roman in that mindset.

Virgil mulled it over, several times over, for several minutes each time. It wouldn’t hurt to ask or try… right?

…Right?

So there he stood, in front of Roman’s door one night, as an adult because he needed to have this conversation while he wasn’t in his childish mindset. He sighed a little, and finally lifted his hand to knock.

He tensed when Roman answered. Roman looked confused for a moment. “Virgil?”

“I uh… need to talk to you about something,” Virgil said, glancing around before meeting his eye.

Roman stepped aside wordlessly, but Virgil shook his head.

“Out here, if that’s okay?”

Roman nodded, still looking confused as he stepped outside and closed the door behind himself. “Is everything alright?”

“I just… had a question, I guess? I’m not sure how to word it,” Virgil said, rubbing the back of his neck and shoving his hands in his pockets. “Um…” Roman watched him expectantly. “Okay, look, you make me feel kind of safe, when I’m small? Like even if we’ve only spent time together once or twice while I’m like that, just the general idea of you is calming? And I just—I dunno, I wouldn’t mind if we… hung out again like that? It’s… really up to you, you don’t have—”

“Virgil,” Roman said, interrupting his anxious rambles. “Are you… asking me to be your caregiver?”

“I… I don’t know.” Virgil was looking at anywhere but Roman, before looking up at him. “Sort of, I guess?”

“Well… I don’t think I’d mind,” Roman admitted.

“Really?” Virgil perked up a bit, but tried to make it less noticeable.

Roman nodded. “Really.”

**Author's Note:**

> come yell at me on tumblr: esperinkdraws


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